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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863182">You'll Know All I Haven't Said</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicZombie/pseuds/CosmicZombie'>CosmicZombie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Christmas, Destiel December 2020, Feel-good, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, serious cheese warning for anyone who's lactose intolerant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:48:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,726</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicZombie/pseuds/CosmicZombie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas has always had an unnerving knack for knowing what Dean wants the most, even before Dean knows it himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>241</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You'll Know All I Haven't Said</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is my first entry for the Destiel December 2020 writing challenge, on the prompt "presents". I'd intended it as a short drabble, but here we are instead with a 2,700 word fluffy high school au fic that isn't any great work of literature, but certainly cheered me up to write! I hope you enjoy it - any feedback would honestly make my day &lt;3</p><p>Title from Pablo Neruda: "In one kiss, you'll know all I haven't said."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cas always gives the best presents. Dean knows it’s something to do with his unnervingly observant nature, the way he’s so tuned into the people around him. Or maybe just Dean. The thought makes something unfurl in Dean’s stomach that’s feels a bit like fear, or anticipation maybe. It happens a lot when he thinks of Cas, these days. Which is a lot, if Dean is being totally honest. Cas is his best friend, has been since they were both eight years old, so it’s normal that he occupies a lot of space in Dean’s head. It’s just that these days – sometimes it’s so much that it scares Dean, just a little. Because he knows there isn’t much time left where Cas will be a daily fixture of his life; next fall, they’re both heading off to college and everything’s going to be different.</p><p>That’s why, Dean tells himself, he’s spent so much time trying to think of what to give Cas this Christmas. It’s hard to top Cas’s gift-giving skills. He has always had an unnerving knack for somehow knowing exactly what Dean wants, even before Dean knows it himself. Not that Dean would tell him, but all his most treasured gifts over the years have all been from Cas. A wonky, handmade wooden impala car Cas made in his Dad’s workshop when he was twelve. Zeppelin concert tickets the Christmas they were both fifteen. Last year, an anthology of Neruda with Cas’s scrawling writing on the opening page, which Dean has read more than the poems the book contains (not that he’d admit that to Cas).</p><p>The only problem with Cas being so amazing at choosing gifts is that Dean always feels under pressure to match Cas’s presents, give him something that he’ll treasure as much as Dean treasures the gifts Cas gives him. And the thing is, Cas is hard to buy for, hard to read, a lot of the time. Even though Dean spends more time with Cas than anyone else, and spends even more time thinking about Cas, he’s never quite sure what’s going on in his head. And that makes it difficult, because Dean so wants to make this last Christmas before they both go their separate ways special.</p><p>The thought of not being around Cas every day makes his whole chest ache, so Dean tries not to do it. But sometimes it just creeps up on him and it’s like having a bucket of ice water poured over him, a constant knife in his chest that twists deeper and deeper as it gets closer to the time he knows they’ll have to say goodbye. It’s not just about parting ways – Dean knows there’s no way he and Cas won’t stay best friends. But it's like there's also something that Dean's always been waiting for that might not get to happen, that graduating and leaving for college might get in the way of, and even though Dean has no idea what it is he’s waiting for, the idea that it might get pushed aside, might never happen, is somehow unbearable.</p><p>After a week of agonising over options, it’s finally Christmas Eve and Dean is standing on Cas’s doorstep, breath clouding out in front of him in the frosty air. There’s small parcel in the pocket of his leather jacket that he fiddles with nervously as he waits, feeling the bumps of his own bad gift-wrapping skills. His stomach flips over inexplicably when the hall lights flicker on there’s the sound of keys in the lock.</p><p>“Dean,” Cas smiles, quiet but sincere, and stands back to let Dean in. Dean is hit, as he is not infrequently these days, by how good-looking Cas has become. He’s not built but he’s lean, strong-looking, with a kind of grace about the way he carries himself. Tonight, he’s wearing an indigo knitted sweater that he got in a thrift store with Dean last year, and it makes the blue of his gaze feel infinite as it sweeps over Dean, familiar and warm.</p><p>“Hey,” Dean smiles stupidly, suddenly feeling self-conscious as he steps into the hallway. It’s warm and smells faintly of incense and home-baking, but they don’t linger, heading straight up the stairs to Cas’s room as usual.</p><p>“Very festive,” Dean remarks as Cas closes the door behind them, noting the multi-coloured fairy lights Cas has strewn around the window, glowing softly and casting the room into muted colours. Dean secretly prefers Cas’s room to his; he’s spent so much time in it over the years that it feels just as much like home, maybe even a little more because it has Cas in it.</p><p>“Thanks,” Cas is standing by the door, arms folded across his chest as he watches Dean inspect his bookshelf, run his fingertip along the spines. “There’s a new one there for you, if you want it.” His expression is uncharacteristically unreadable. Not that Cas is easy to read – not by any stretch of the imagination. But Dean’s spent a long time mapping out his different expressions and mannerisms, and it’s not often these days that he’s faced with one he can’t place at all. This one is not unfamiliar, though. It’s one he’s noticed playing across Cas’s features increasingly often in recent months, generally when he glances up and catches Cas off guard. It’s an expression that niggles away at the back of Dean’s mind when he’s trying to get to sleep at night, gets under his skin.</p><p>Dean looks reluctantly away from Cas and back to the shelves, eyeing them more closely. His hand pauses on an unfamiliar hardback, Bluebeard by Vonnegut. “This?”</p><p>“If you want it,” Cas says, and Dean thinks he detects a note of apprehension beneath the warmth, a kind of distraction, as though he’s thinking about something else, which is a sharp contrast to his often unnerving focus that’s usually directed Dean’s way.</p><p>“Thanks,” Dean takes the book of the shelf and flips through the pages, catches a few flashes of Cas’s dextrous scrawl.</p><p>“Don’t – don’t read my notes now,” Cas crosses the room, takes the book from Dean’s hands and closes it. “Not when I’m here.”</p><p>Dean eyes him curiously. One of his favourite things about Cas lending him books all the time is getting to read Cas’s private thoughts filling the margins. “Is this my Christmas present? Not like you to forgo the fancy paper and the chance to upstage my gift-wrapping skills.”</p><p>A smile pulls at the corner of Cas’s mouth, his eyes crinkle with quiet amusement even though the nervousness doesn’t dissipate, Dean notes. “No, it’s not your present.”</p><p>“Then where is it?” Dean asks, glancing around the room – but there’s no sight of a gift. Just the soft glow of the fairy lights and Cas’s notebooks on his desk, a couple of jumpers hanging over the back of his chair, the little cactus Dean gave him for his birthday two years ago sitting stoutly on his bedside table.</p><p>“You’re very demanding,” Cas admonishes, handing the book back to Dean and crossing the room to sit down on one end of the window seat, curling up like a cat. There’s a twinkle of amusement in his blue gaze, but he pulls the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands, something Dean knows he only does when he’s nervous. The thought makes a pang of nerves curl through Dean too, although he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why it feels like they’re waiting for something.  </p><p>“Well, you’re very mysterious,” Dean counters, flopping down on the other end of the window-seat and pushing one of his socked feet playfully at Cas’s. “And unnervingly good at presents, which is why I’m so particularly demanding today. I’m expecting great things. How is that you always seem to know exactly what I want?”</p><p>“I very much hope that’s true this year,” Cas says, quiet in a way that makes Dean catch his breath, inexplicably nervous too. He’s looking down, still fiddling with the stray thread from the cuff of his jumper. His expression is uncharacteristically vulnerable in the soft light, messy dark hair and wide eyes so blue that they make Dean’s heart fumble a beat in his chest when Cas suddenly looks up, holds Dean’s gaze. It’s very quiet, the space between them. Dean feels very aware of his heart, doesn’t know why it’s suddenly going quite so fast. “You go first,” Cas says, low, eyes intent and full of <em>something</em>, and it takes Dean a moment to remember what they’re talking about.</p><p>“Oh – yeah, okay,” he stutters, feeling his cheeks flush as he fumbles in the pocket of his jacket and pulls out the package he’d wrapped earlier. “Look – don’t get too excited. You know I’m not great at presents, but I wanted to do something special, because you know –” he breaks off, trying to push down the sudden sharpness in his chest, “This might be the last Christmas we spend together, and I don’t want you to go forgetting me when you’re off being all genius at some school I’d never be able to get into.” He thrusts the present unceremoniously at Cas. “Badly wrapped as usual, sorry,” he adds, as an afterthought.</p><p>“Dean,” Cas is holding the wrapped present, but he’s not looking at it. He’s looking at Dean with the kind of familiar, earnest sincerity that makes Dean’s heart ache, that he’s going to miss so much. “There is no chance of me ever forgetting you,” Cas says slowly, and the <em>something</em> in his gaze deepens, turning into something that makes Dean feel simultaneously as though he wants to look away and never look away again. The space between them suddenly feels intimate, theirs. Just the two of them, the way Dean always aches for when it’s not.</p><p>“Thanks,” Dean says, gathering himself, but his voice sounds unsteady to his own ears, like he suddenly feels. Off-kilter, dizzy, like they’re both spinning into orbit. “Okay, okay, open the goddamn present already,” Dean mumbles, awkward, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Cas keeps looking at him like that, and he’s afraid of how much he wants to find out.</p><p>Cas looks at him a beat longer, before dropping his attention to the present, unwrapping it carefully with his long, dextrous fingers. There’s a moment when he pulls the leather-bound album out of the shell of wrapping where Dean feels hot all over, embarrassed by his own sentiment. He digs his nails into his palm, watches as Cas opens it and goes still, reading Dean’s inscription. There’s a long pause, and then he turns the first page, and then the next and the next, looking at the photos of him and Dean that Dean has collected from over the years: the two of them togged up in winter coats and red welly boots, making snow-angels in Dean’s back garden; Cas aged ten with a tearstained face, watching as Dean puts a band-aid on his grazed knee; both of them on their first day of middle school, Cas moody with pins all over his jacket and scruffy converse sneakers, Dean grinning with his letterman; Cas, windswept and smiling two summers ago, lying on a sandy beach and gazing up at Dean with that a hint of that <em>something</em> Dean can’t get out of his head now.</p><p>Cas finally looks up at him, eyes so blue it hurts to look at them. “Thank you, Dean,” his voice is slightly hoarse. “This –” he breaks off, swallows, turning the album over in his hands. “This must have taken you ages.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it,” Dean mumbles gruffly, cheeks heating up. His heart is racing, and he wants to change the subject, take the focus away from how intimate the present suddenly feels now that Cas is holding all their memories in his hands. “Anyway, enough of that. I’m glad you like it, but you know I can’t handle chick flick moments. Come on, your turn. Where’s mine?”</p><p>The unreadable look is back on Cas’s face with more intensity, combined with something Dean definitely recognises as nervousness now. Cas’s chest is rising and falling more rapidly, eyes wider than usual, cheeks slightly flushed as he holds Dean’s gaze, almost like he’s steeling himself for something. “Okay,” he says, seemingly more to himself than to Dean. Okay, close your eyes.”</p><p>“What?” Dean blinks.</p><p>“Close them,” Cas says, with slightly more authority, but Dean can see the way Cas’s fingers are trembling where he’s still holding all of their memories, their whole friendship in his hands. Cas glances down at it unreadably, like it’s suddenly fragile, and then back at Dean. He swallows, repeats, “Dean,” quietly imploring.</p><p>Dean closes his eyes. Cas’s gaze and the fairy lights all fade into to soft shadow. Vision gone, Dean suddenly feels very aware of the proximity between them, the almost imperceptible warmth of Cas beside him, the way their thighs are pressed lightly together. Dean has a sudden urge to nudge his closer to Cas’s, to close all the gaps and feel how warm Cas really is. He breathes in, suddenly breathless, and is overwhelmed by the smell of Cas’s skin, familiar and musky, a hint of the patchouli incense he always burns when he’s working. The smell of home. Dean’s heart is suddenly racing so hard it hurts. “Cas?”</p><p>Cas is silent. There’s a pause that might be a single heartbeat or the whole last ten years, and then there’s warm, tentative pressure against Dean’s mouth. Cas’s lips, silken soft and hot, brushing tenderly, slowly, against his. Cas’s hands cupping his face, rough and warm and trembling, holding him still as the world spins away into nothing. Cas’s breath, gentle and unsteady against Dean’s mouth, punctuating the kiss.</p><p>Dean’s eyes fly open, and the first thing he sees is blue. Deep, exhilarating blue. Like the sky at that moment just between dusk and darkness. And then he’s drowning. He ducks forward and captures Cas’s mouth again with his, stomach somersaulting at the stifled sound Cas makes, like he thought Dean wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t want this. The heat unfurling deep Dean’s chest intensifies at the way Cas’s hands grab at the front of Dean’s shirt, clumsy and desperate, the way Cas shifts closer, all warmth. Cas’s mouth is hot and wet and perfect, tongue twining with Dean’s as they kiss, pressing so close together that their noses nudge together, that Dean’s not sure who’s heartbeat belongs to who anymore.</p><p>When they break apart for breath, Cas’s cheeks are flushed and his eyes are dark and shining. He’s so beautiful Dean aches with it.</p><p>“Merry Christmas, Dean,” Cas says, voice low and heavy in a way that makes arousal curl through Dean. His eyes are full of quiet happiness, and that <em>something</em> that Dean hasn’t been able to get out of his head for months. It’s wonderful to finally know what it is, to know that it is this. Dean feels like he’s floating.</p><p>“Merry Christmas,” Dean echoes, dazedly, and his voice sounds as rough as Cas’s. He shakes his head, smiling in disbelief. “I told you that you always know what I want before I do,” he pauses, “Though, amazing as all the others were, I think this present might just top the list.” Dean is vaguely aware that he’s grinning giddily, heart still pounding.</p><p>“I wasn’t sure you’d like it,” Cas admits, looking down, and Dean catches a hint of the nervousness Cas was full of earlier, that makes sense now. Dean feels a rush of warmth for him at the courage it must have taken to cross that line, to take a whole ten years of friendship in his hands and do what Dean never had the courage for.</p><p>“Hey,” Dean reaches out, twines their hands together. It’s reassuring the way he can feel Cas trembling a bit too, reminding him they’re both in this together, it’s just the two of them, the way Dean likes it best. “Cas. It’s the best present I’ve ever had,” he says, honestly. Cas looks up and smiles at him, brighter than the lights above them, than anything Dean’s ever known – and Dean suddenly has to rethink his words, because Cas looking at him like that, so full of love and happiness, is better than anything Dean could ever have imagined.</p>
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